Before I typed that, I thought it might be a joke, but now that I think about it, between the offseason, the shortened season, the quarantine? Genuinely may be the most time off from basketball in a 12-month span that he's had since, like, age 13. He's probably got fresher legs than he's had in years.

Clearly he'd devolved on defensive effort to some extent over the last year or two, but that was clearly because he was saving himself for the offensive end. If he's got fresh legs and feels he can exert himself more consistently on the defensive end, then that's obviously HUGE, because very few players can score on a guy that big, quick, and smart when he's locked in defensively. (Also helps that he feels less of a scoring burden on this Laker team, he can focus on distributing a lot more and getting banged around a lot less.)